fionnegan

This is awesome

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:00:34 GMT

For those of you who know about guitar hero world tour, this is pretty sweet!

ZOMBIES!!!

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:33:50 GMT

This is the website for Dan and Jim's movie MISFIT HEIGHTS. There is no trailer yet, but you can see some photos of the amazing puppets and filming process. Some favorites are Tiny, the shots of puppeteering, and Zoltar's Map of Domination. Even if you don't know Dan and Jim you should check it out because it's going to be awesome.

www.misfitheights.com

This is long, but funny.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:34:59 GMT

I just laid some google images over the top of this segment from a morning radio show I listen to. I hope you like it.

kroq Loquecia reviews Tila Tequila from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

News

Thu, 22 May 2008 05:45:10 GMT

So I went ahead and graduated. Then this happens.

I feel you, W. It's a sad day for the country. My flag is at half mast.

CalArtians, ASSEMBLE!

Thu, 01 May 2008 01:37:26 GMT

Hi everyone.

If you are a CalArts School of Theater alum or student then you should go to the CalArts Mafia page. You probably already know what the Calarts Mafia is, but in case you don't It's the network of students and alum from the theater school that work all around the country. We're a powerful force and now we are connected. Looking for help? Looking for a gig? Looking to move somewhere and want to connect with other Calartians in that area? Then become a member of the CalArts Mafia online.

www.ciamafia.com

A Grilled Charlie has peanut butter LAST!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:02:57 GMT

For those of you who don't know, the subject line is a quote from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If you don't know what that is you should stop reading this and go find out what I'm talking about. It's hilarious and really clever.

In this episode Frank is trying to make a Grilled Charlie while Charlie tries to walk him through the proper steps.

The quote is,

"A Grilled Charlie has peanut butter LAST!
Peanut butter outside, chocolate inside. Butter inside, cheese outside!"

If you are like me you are wondering exactly how the hell that works. What the hell, Charlie? What are you putting in your body? Gross.

Well, I've found the recipe for those of you bold enough to try it.

Using the quote exactly for a 'sandwich blueprint' if you will, would look as follows: Cheese -> Bread -> Butter -> Chocolate -> Bread -> Peanut Butter. To properly make a grilled Charlie:

1) Butter one side of a piece of bread to hell and back. Put the bread butter-side down on a frying pan which has also been endowed with copious amounts of butter.
2) While frying, place cheese (1 slice) on the bread. as the cheese melts flip the bread and fry the cheese (NOTE: take care as to not let the cheese stick to the pan…Should not be a problem if the correct (and absurdly disgusting) amount of butter is applied). Remove bread from pan.
3) Making sure there is still plenty of butter in pan, place second piece of bread in pan. While frying, add decidedly more than a drizzle of chocolate syrup (Hershey's) to the top of bread and proceed to flip. Quickly (as to avoid burning) fry chocolate. Remove from pan.
4) Construct sandwich by placing bread together, cheese on the outside, and butter and chocolate on the inside. Spread thin layer of peanut butter on the previously unadorned side. Enjoy.

(the poster of the recipe has) made and consumed a grilled charlie, and let me tell you, if made according to Mr. Kelley's description, it is quite delicious, although, (he) felt extremely dirty while and after eating, so exercise extreme caution

Update

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:33:39 GMT

A real update
1.) I moved. I'm now living in Jim, Tara, Alexa, and Lyssa's apartment. It's pretty cool. Jim will be leaving soon to make his movie, so I'll take over his room when that happens. Now I'm living in the living room. Appropriate and slightly reminiscent of my first apartment out here with dan.

2) I moved because Dan proposed to Becca and they got their own place.

3.) I have a full time job working at a theater manager / audio tech at USC. So far so good. I've been there for almost 3 weeks.

4.) In those 3 weeks I've already been assigned a sound design for one of their shows. I'm getting a stipend on top of my hourly rate and it's fun.

5.) I graduate in a few weeks. Then I'll be a Sound Master. Take that, fuckers!

6.) I already have 2 sound designs lined up for the summer with a third pending.

7.) I got Logic 8 recently and I've gotten a chance to play with it. It's awesome! I dig it.

8.) MIDI is a kind of digital signal that allows different pieces of hardware to talk to one another. It has 5 pins in it, but only uses 3. The standard distance that MIDI can run without a MIDI amplifier is 50'. My friend DAVE made a MIDI to XLR cable that allows you to fire MIDI codes down the much more reliable, shielded cable much further. All you do is connect the 3 functional MIDI wires in the cable to the 3 XLR wires. Today I built one of my own and successfully sent a signal 600' before I stopped because that's more than what I need. But now I'm curious how far XLR can send it.

9.) I've stripped the vocals out of 4 songs for the show I'm designing, each one requiring a different solution. It's a fun exercise.

10.) I wrote another story for The Keyhole Opera. It's an interview with a Luck Slinger. I like it. It explains the reasoning for knocking on wood.

What we do

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:47:59 GMT

Ambush from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

Another Call to Friends

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:51:08 GMT

Okay everyone,

I'm putting another call out for artwork for The Keyhole Opera. I would like to request that the artwork is kept vague, as I do not like it when the illustrations dictate to the reader how to visualize the story. No faces, use general iconography or however you go about cooking up your imagery.

You can go HERE to download a free copy of it to peruse. The stories that I need artwork for are as follows:

Elizabeth Twinkle Toes; a charming story about a girl daydreaming with her brother.

Eloises Saturday Morning; a look at a typical saturday, playing chess in the park.

Lillian's Delight; A little girl who is learning the definition of Delight.

The Beekeeper; a poem about the harbinger of all things magic.

Megan's Mandolin; a poem about a young thief who uses a magical mandolin to lull her victims to sleep before she filches from them.

The Ballad of Mayor Reynolds and Reverend Morgan; a poem about betrayal and revenge.

The Chimney Sweep; a man with a broken heart searches for salvation.

Crowded Andy; a man in the city has a necklace that prevents him from changing into a werewolf, but the longer he holds back the more furious he becomes. Can he get out of the city in time?

The Coward; an epic poem that validates the necessity of violence in certain situations.

So, everyone, please. Message me or call me or just download the stories and draw, color, paint, photograph, or whatever it is you do and send it to me.

Please. Thank you.

Wahoo

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:35:02 GMT

I escaped from the Dungeon of Hannigan Rex!

I killed Wigu the dragon, Happycantaloupe the leprechaun, Sonic Chuck the nymph, Eloe the floating eye, Danielleybelly the cockatrice, Vern0n the goblin, Mewlie the rat and Carlos Norris the troll.

I looted the Armour of Underworld Rpg, the Amulet of Aphexk, the Wand of Cartoons, the Sword of Indigojones, the Crown of Wenamun and 172 gold pieces.

Score: 272

Explore the Dungeon of Hannigan Rex and try to beat this score,
or enter your username to generate and explore your own dungeon...

Come back and fill my lonely pew

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:31:55 GMT

If I were to say the following list of words, what would you think of?

Marijuana
Orgies
car wrecks
murder
violence
corny 1920's dialogue
Jesus performing in a Las Vegas lounge act, complete with sequins and backup scantily clad girls in angel costumes

If you thought of grade school, your home town, the town next door, or christmas; that's sad. If you thought of Reefer Madness then I'm happy to announce that you can see it at Saddleback Civic Light Opera. I'm designing the sound and Fernando Vasquez is rocking the 5D as my mixer. He's doing a bang up job, and the show is trippy and hilarious. Come see it, one and all.

Book Forum

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:02:28 GMT

For those of you who enjoy talking about books you've read, or read reviews of books you have not read yet, my girlfriend Leia (Lee-a, not Lay-a) has started a blogspot intended for such uses.

Here it is!

She's pretty cool and she would just like people to check it out. The more the merrier.

I just thought I would pass it on.

Also, all of you are cool.

Mike, that pitcher does look like Jim! That's weird.

Ellie, congrats on everything and I thought they were actually liquidated too. Did you think that a boobie trap was a bra too? I did and it always confused me when my friends wanted to put boobie traps around our forts in the park.

Jerries who work out have more self-efficiency juice? Fionns should work out as well. Maybe they will get more of those juices. (Okay, that ending got weird. Sorry about that. ... Um, awkward.)

I don't usually do surveys, but this seemed important

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:34:31 GMT

1. If zombies took your town over where would you go for safety?
Does this mean where in my town would I hide? Or where would I run to after leaving my town? I'll answer both. 1) The Santa Monica Pier. There's only one entrance, which can be destroyed, allowing humans to swim out and climb up, but making the trek difficult for the uncoordinated undead. 2) I would get the HELL out of the LA area and go somewhere less populated, probably make my way up to San Francisco and re-establish communication there.

2. What would you use to kill zombies?
Meele? Crowbar, it's not going to break and while I'm on the run it's also a crowbar, which would be handy. Close Range? If I have the luxury to use a handgun I would. Far Range? Rifle or compound bow. I'm a pretty good archer, and it gives the bonus of being quiet so as to not alert other undead in the area. But it is slower than a rifle, which could be horrible.

3. If your gf/bf got bit what would you do?
I would stay with her until she turned, unless she asked for the alternative. But once she's a zombie she's not my girlfriend anymore. Sorry Leia, but I'd want you to do the same.

4. Is the mall a really good idea?
I think that staying in one spot is a bad idea. Inevitabely your resources will run out. You've gotta keep moving until you can find a way to make a base that is self contained with a garden, water purification system, some sort of perimeter defense, and a generator. The mall or wal mart are good ideas for scavenging, but not a good choice to stay.

5. Would it be hard to shoot your friends and family members if they were zombies?
Yes. But a part of me would know that they're already dead, thus making it easier.

6. Would you be able to have sex knowing zombies might bust in at any time?
After a while of living in that kind of situation I think I would, but it would take a while.

7. If you were bit would you tell?
Yes! If I'm travelling with a group then they need to know just like I'd want to know if one of them were bit. Not telling is how teams get taken apart, people!

8. If you saw one of your worst enemies, would you shoot them even though they were not infected?
No. At that point every human is valuable. Besides, murder is still murder.

9. What would you do to your car to make it zombie proof?
Drive it faster. I would not trust any armor or grating put on my car because movies taught me that they'll eventually rip it all off. Besides, that's how you get cockey. Having said that...thick plexi over all the windows and spikes everywhere I could get them, or we go the other route and teflon coat everything so they can't hold on. Whichever is more conveniently available.

10. Do you worry about zombies taking over?
For real? No. But do I think about it from time to time? Yes.
\

Show Reviews

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:05:22 GMT

LA WEEKLY

LA Stage Scene

This is pretty exciting. The show is a success! Check these out. I'm going to go see it on Jan. 27th and Feb 9th. If you want to come on the same day as me you can buy tickets at http://www.rushforthproductions.com/ under the Buy Tickets tab. If you want to see it, but want to avoid seeing me there you should buy tickets from the same tab but on different days.

Thank you.

What do you guys think?

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:40:58 GMT

Any thoughts on this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBo4E77ZXo

Puppets!

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:03:44 GMT

This is Zombie Alley, Arizona. A short story that Jim and I wrote a few months ago. It was too funny to NOT perform at the Puppet Caberet at CalArts. Kacey Kvamme made the 3D puppets.

Enjoy.

Zombie Alley, Arizona from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

Ain't no party like a CalArts party...8 Events

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:59:41 GMT

So I was the head audio engineer on a CalArts halloween party. I'm mixing on a Yamaha M7CL, a $20,000 board with 2 Meyer Mica line arrays, approx. $150,000.00 and 6 self powered Meyer monitors, approx $30,000.00 and various microphones and cables.

Interesting event 1: As I'm mixing the headliner, Andrew W.K., he is a hard rocker party dude, he gets a TON of people on the stage and everyone is spilling beer and jumping around. Good times for a party goer. Lame for technicians. Beer is spilled EVERYWHERE as well as cocaine. I had to get security up there to clear the deck.

2: The jumping partygoers broke the steel deck. I thought that was impossible. Aparently it just takes 30 people jumping all at the same time.

3: A dancer who had missed his event came with his entourage up to my mixing position (the one driving over $200,000.00 worth of gear). The fire chief mandated that there could only be 4 people at the front of house position at any time and with all of these people up there we had about 8. This is the conversation that followed.

Me: Hey, we can only have 4 people up here, please step down onto the floor.

Jason: I'm not leaving until I get my CD back.

Me: Okay, I'll get your CD, but you really need to get off the deck. The fire marshal said he would shut this down if he saw more that 4 people up here.

Jason: Do you know who I am? I'll shut this whole thing down right now! Give me my CD!

Me: Look man, Just get off the fucking deck! My place my rules. OFF!

Jason: You do not need to curse at me. I didn't use profanity with you.

Me: What the fuck? Look man, just step down. We can have this converstion once you get off the deck. (I then put my hand on his shoulder to show him the way, guiding like. He freaks out because I touched him.)

Jason: DON'T PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME! YOU DON'T NEED TO SHOVE ME!

(Now the lighting designer is coming over to get my back.)

LD: EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET OFF THE DECK!

Jason gets in my face.

Jason: I'll have you thrown out and this party shut down!

Me: Dude its like this. You step down or I have security get you down.

Jason: I dare you!

So I do. Bye bye Jason.

4. Andrew W.K. not only broke the steel deck on the main stage, but he also spilled beer over all of our gack on the stage. So when the next band came up to play we needed to re-route all of the microphones and replace a lot of cables. So now all of the work we did at Mic Check is fubar and I'm not even sure which channels the newly patched microphones are coming in on. The next band is a mess and it was because of the routing issues.

5. Jason comes back with the dean of students. A woman who doesn't want to be here. He says that he brought her to have his back and then explains that I don't know how to respect the students and I shouldn't put my hands on him and I was disrespectful. I hear him out politely while my assistant mixes the band that's playing. I then apologise for touching him and remind him about the situation and how it went down, asking him to not interrupt me while I talk because I didn't do it to him. He doesn't accept my apology. So I tell the dean of students what happened in every detail. I told her that I've apologised and he didn't accept my apology and I don't know what else to do. I also apologise to her for this situation getting out of hand. I tell her about the fire marshal's rule and this being my area of responsibility and the ammount of money that I'm in charge of. She looks at Jason and says "We're done here, Jason. Let's go."

Booya!

6. There was one decent band there. The LPs. A funk rap group. It was awesome. Then we had one awesome DJ at the end. I got to dance.

7. I almost forgot that before we started we had a speaker with a blown high end driver and the owner of the rental company was kind enough to come down himself and replace the speaker at 10:00 pm on a friday night. We didn't break it, it came that way. But he was a cool guy and I'm glad I know him.

8. Strike immediately after. I got home at 7:00 this morning. I got to see the sun rise for the second time this week and I get to do it again tomorrow night into Monday. Hooray!

I'm not mixing a show at a Calarts party again.

What's up?

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:51:34 GMT

1) I am not on fire, but school was closed today due to Apocalyptic Hellfire raging throughout the area.
2) I have been sick and it blows ass!
3) I went to see PJ Harvey in concert on Thrusday and it was cool. I got in free and was upgraded to a VIP pass, which apparently meant that I got to sit on the side of the auditorium on a padded seat with no back which allowed me to see the back of the piano clearly, but not her face for any of her piano ditties.
4) I watched Harry Potter with the Brad Neely commentary, which can be downloaded from www.creasedcomics.com. It's called Wizard People, Dear Readers. I reccommend it because it made me laugh for over two hours straight.
5) I'm re-watching Carnivàle with some friends up at school. We're about to get into Babylon. Wish us luck.

So on with the story.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:56:54 GMT

...about 2 cowboys
One whose mustache has won him great renown throughout Arizona. All of the women around wanted nothing more than to run their fingers through his thick luscious moustache, which reached all the way back into his sideburns. He was not tall, nor was he very thin. His name was Bert.

Randy, on the other hand was much taller and thinner than Bert. Randy had a Ten-Gallon Beard that made his head seem twice as long as it actually was, but he wore an extra-wide sombrero to cancel it out.

Bert and Randy were not familiar with one another. Bert lived his life quite comfortably in Zombie Alley amongst a plethora of young women with tickling tricky fingers and Randy wandered about the deserts and plains. Until one day Randy sauntered into Bert's town.

Now, as you can imagine, Bert was none too happy with the added competition that Randy and his Ten-Gallon Beard brought with them. Bert was in the saloon with all of the other cowboys, enjoying a whiskey and the long fingernails of Sandy, the young saloon gal. When Randy entered he immediately locked eyes in a long cowboy stare with Bert.

The piano player stopped playing.

"Uh huh," Bert said in an effortless droll.
"Yyyyyyyup," Randy sighed, squinting.
"Mmmmm Hmmmmm!" Sandy said, excited by Randy's full Ten-Gallon Beard.
Sandy crossed the saloon and without warning began caressing Randy's Ten-Gallon Beard. Bert stood up, knocking his chair to the floor. He crossed to Randy and, perching on his tip-toes in his cowboy boots, he stood nose to nose, eyes to eyes, with Randy. The ends of their whiskers danced around one another. Electricity arced betwixt the manly pubes like the emperor's fingers and Luke Skywalker right before his student and the father of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader (once known as Anakin Skywalker) picked him up and tossed him down a power shaft in that momentous scene in the final chapter of George Lucas' epic.
"You boys wanna take this outside?" asked Barney the bar tender
"Uh huh." said Bert
"Yyyyyyup." said Randy
Sandy screamed and fainted.

Just then the bell of the church began ringing somethin' fierce!

The two cowboys marched out into the streets and loaded their riffles. Children and women rushed inside to escape any harm, frightened for their lives. The men did also. One person remained, Jim, the local barber. He cried a single tear for he knew that today one masterpiece of facial proportions would lie, mussed in the streets.
"Please," Jim begged, "don't do this! You both have such beautiful face manes. Are you really going to fight each other because the saloon girl can't control her wandering lustful fingers?"
"Uh huh," Bert growled.
"Yyyyyyup!" Randy drawled. The bell of the church rang again and the pastor ran out into the streets.
"We got Zombies comin'!" he shouted, which sent Jim back inside, squealing and still crying.
A cloud of dust, which was rolling on the horizon, was making its way towards the town.
The steely cowboy gaze that Bert and Randy shared in the empty streets of Zombie Alley said everything. Their feud would have to wait. Randy picked up his riffle and stood side by side with Bert at the gates of the town. The cloud of dust on the horizon grew closer, revealing its evil, rotting, clean-shaven hoard. Just then the priest, a goatee wearing short waif of a man clamored to their side and panting repeated, "We got Zombies comin'!"

"Uh huh," Bert muttered.
"Yyyyyyup," Randy agreed.

my job

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:46:15 GMT

My job
So my job requires me to do a variety of things. I've had to place microphone pacs on scantily clad women. Mixing concerts amongst big stars and half naked people. I've also worked on shows that have me working with grown people in animal costumes.

But today was a first. I was required to sift through a porn movie in the stage manager booth, find the most raw hardcore scene and rip the audio out to a format that I can play back during the show. Not only that, but I had to drive to a house and pick up a package from the front porch that contained all of the porn movies at our disposal.

That scene is much funnier now because of that sound cue.

Hooray for butt sex and growling!

If you are in the area go and see ANON It's a really good show. It's not about porn. It's funny and sad and it doesn't pull any punches. There's also a really good cast! (Not bad on the eyes either)

Oct 12 - Nov 11,2007
Fri & Sat @ 8p; Sun @ 7p

Stage 52
5299 W. Washington Blvd.

Bates tour

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:40:03 GMT

This is the Bates Motel in greater detail.

Bates Motel from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

Workin' Man

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:39:40 GMT

Hi everybody. I'm the luckiest boy in the world because this is where I work. I took the video on my digital camera, so it's kind of bad quality, but you'll get the idea. Also I may not look so pretty. But I'm working, give me a break.

Enjoy.

Untitled from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

and Whoville:

Untitled from Fionnegan Murphy on Vimeo.

Sound Design idea

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:09:25 GMT

Hello all,
I'm designing a show coming up in November at the Red Cat theater. It's a collaboration between the music school and the theater school.

Here's the setup:
A trombone player controlls the action. He is on a central platform and the audience is seated around him on all 4 sides. Seated behind the audience members are the other symphony members, 28 people in all. The members of the symphony that he is facing at any given moment will be playing along and improvising with him. The others will not.

Heres the issue:
Since the trombone is a highly directional instrument I would like to give him some reinforcement so that the people behind him and to the side of him can still hear what is going on. But I don't want to kill the people in front of him. A mixer could do this live, ducking the volume to each zone as the trombonist moves around. But I don't know how much he is going to move, if it's scripted, or how quickly he will be moving. So I'd like to have some sort of automation to control the volume of each zone. Plus automation is more fun.

The possible solutions:
1) I could put an infrared transmitter on the end of the trombone and 4 receivers; one placed on the top of each music stand on the 4 sides. Those transmitters would go into a computer midi program called MAX (a program that changes/manipulates/routes midi information so that you can do quite literally anything you can think of). The max patch would spit out midi information into the digital board. The effect being that when the IR sensor receives information from the transmitter it would duck the channel that controls the speaker in that area.

The problem with 1) is that any changes in the lighting could make the IR unstable and duck the area when I didn't want it to.

2) A similar idea except instead of using IR we use microphones and compressors. The trombone will be on mic anyway because it needs to be reinforced. I would use a splitter to send that signal to the B channel on 4 stereo compressors. Then on each music stand I'd have another mic. That mic would go to the A channel in each compressor. I'd then set up the compressor so that only the B channel is output but if the A channel increases both are ducked, thus lowering the speaker of the zone that the trombone is facing.

The problem with 2) is that that's a lot of splitting of the original signal AND that's a lot of compressors.

Does anyone else out there have any other ideas?

A discovery

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:22:14 GMT

I was writing a letter and I used the word "rejuvenate". For the first time since I've taken Spanish in High School I really looked at the word. "RE" as we all know mean to repeat, or return to. But then I looked at "juvenate" and I noticed the similarity to the Spanish word "juventude" or "joven", which translates to "young" or "Youthful". So I decided that although everyone knows that rejuvenate means to feel better (or at least that's how most of the people I know including myself use it.) But it's literally about returning to youth, or feeling more youthful. This may or may not seem cool to some of you (like my roommate who is giving me no credit at the moment) but some of you will recognize that I've just made the scientific connection between the word, it's root, and the literal meaning without the aid of a dictionary and even if you knew this fact already will be excited by my discovery. To those people I say thanks for indulging me. For the rest of you. Oh well. No harm done.

Response to Eloe

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:21:19 GMT

I believe that my best summer to date is the summer of 2005. I was working my first professional gigs as a theater person. Northeastern Illinois University hired me as their scene shop supervisor and I had to teach a bunch of apathetic adults and young adults how to use power tools, read a tape measure, and build an awesome set. By the end I'd gotten 3 of them to completely change their attitude about everything and actually get excited about how they would apply their newfound knowledge to their homes. I also worked for IATSE as a stagehand. Good contacts, good pay, and backstage for good concerts. It was awesome. I also got to not only walk on, but work on the field at Miller Stadium all day long. I also worked at the Ren Faire pulling a rickshaw on the weekends. Despite carrying people around the park all day up and down hills it was really fun. I got to yell and get people to shop at stores that they would have passed by and it was overall good times with good people.
That summer I learned how to play the guitar and mandolin a little bit and became closer friends with Danielle and Melissa. It was also the first year of $8 weekend up in Dykesville with a dozen ramdom friends.
Plus I graduated college and got accepted to grad school and The Scarring Party formed.

Then there's the matter of building some rotating bookcases and a secret passageway in my mom's basement.